Michael Rogers Wants Australian National Road Race Title

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Australian cyclist Michael Rogers wants to take a break from time trials, and has his sights set on winning the Australian national road race on January 10th as his first goal of the season. He wants the title so bad that he will not be defending his national time trial title, so he can focus only on the road race. Columbia-HTC teammates Matt Goss and Leigh Howard will be joining him at the race. “It’s a very tough course, not overly long but long enough, and although there’s just the one climb, we do it 16 times and it’s usually very hot, too. It’ll be a race of attrition. For the Australian amateurs, the nationals are their last event of the season and they’re all in great shape, so it’s very hard to control. And of course, if they beat the professionals they get a lot of bragging rights! But with the team we’ve got there, we’ve certainly got the force and talent to achieve a good result,” Rogers said in a team release. Last year, he came very close to winning, finishing in second place. “I did about 100 days racing in 2009, both the Giro and the Tour, so I stopped straight after the world championships, had a good long rest, and then got into training for 2010. I’ve worked really well. I’m three kilos lighter than I was this time last year, and I’ve built up some very good endurance. Hopefully it will be a hard race, because that will suit me better,” he said.